Half said they were worried about housing compared with 39% of heterosexual people while 69% were worried about their health compared with 59% of heterosexual people.įrank, 64, said: "I worry about my partner becoming ill or dying, and about leaving him alone if I die first." Some 72% of LGB people said they were worried about the prospect of needing care later in life, compared with 62% of heterosexual people. Three in five are not confident that support services will meet their needs. But many worried that the services would not meet their needs. Stonewall's report found they were nearly twice as likely to rely on external services such as GPs and social services as heterosexual people.
With diminished support networks compared to their heterosexual peers, they are more likely to rely on formal support services as they get older. The prospects of a solitary old age may be one explanation for why the survey suggests LGB people are consistently more anxious about growing older than heterosexual people.
Paul, 59, said: "My gayness makes me less connected to my biological family who would otherwise look out for me." "As a single gay man, I feel sad about my prospects of finding emotional comfort and support," Michael, 60, told interviewers. The prospect of impending loneliness is a recurring theme among those interviewed for the report. "Quite often, that's because their own families have disowned them just because of the way they were born." "This pioneering research confirms what we already knew intuitively, that there are hundreds of thousands of lesbian and gay people growing older without the same family and support structures that many straight people enjoy," said Ben Summerskill, chief executive of Stonewall. Less than a quarter of LGB people see their biological family members at least once a week, compared with more than half of heterosexual people according to the survey of 1,050 heterosexual and 1,036 LGB people over the age of 55. They were also less likely to see biological family members regularly. Just over a quarter of gay and bisexual men and half of lesbian and bisexual women have children compared with almost nine in every 10 heterosexual men and women. A YouGov survey, commissioned by the campaign group Stonewall, found that older gay and bisexual men are three times more likely to be single than heterosexual men.